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IT WAS a night which illustrated the difference between Liverpool’s recent dark past and the exciting present.

Kenny Dalglish’s men took the fight to Stoke City on Wednesday night and imposed themselves on the contest.

Their positive, high tempo passing game was rewarded in the form of Luis Suarez’s stunning double and a place in the quarter-finals of the Carling Cup.

It’s a world away from the style supporters endured during Roy Hodgson’s short-lived reign when the Reds surrendered the initiative, slung aimless long balls forward and found themselves teetering above the drop zone.

Today’s meeting with Hodgson’s West Brom at The Hawthorns represents an opportunity to show their former manager just how Liverpool have come since Dalglish took the reins in January.

Whereas Hodgson looked to stop opponents playing, Dalglish is only concerned about what his side do.

“We have to do a bit of homework on them before we play them but the most important people are ourselves,” Dalglish said.

“There’s no point in us being any different to what we are. Everyone here is here for a reason and the reason is the way they play football so we’ve got to play to our strengths first and foremost.

“That’s what we’ve tried to do in every game since I’ve been here, whether it was this time or the last time.

“We want to get our team as strong as it possibly can be on the pitch, whether that be in personnel or formation.”

Liverpool travel to the Midlands in high spirits after the win at Stoke. Dalglish was delighted with that performance on the back of two frustrating league draws.

“The players got their reward for their attitude and their commitment,” he said.

“If they hadn’t have approached the game in that way then they wouldn’t have got anything out of it.

“We are very pleased with everything that they did. Sometimes some of the hard work they put in goes unrecognised, but they certainly had to put in a very good shift to win the match.

“I think they’ve always had belief in themselves. If you don’t have belief in yourself when you miss the first chance you create then you’re going to feel sorry for yourself and disappear. They never did that.

“They’ve not done that in the last three games when they’ve created many chances. They just keep going, getting in there and eventually we got our reward. It was a great credit to the players.”

Dalglish made eight changes in midweek with the likes of Martin Kelly, Daniel Agger, Lucas, Maxi Rodriguez, Jordan Henderson and Andy Carroll impressing on their return to the starting line up.

Skipper Steven Gerrard, Glen Johnson, Jose Enrique and Stewart Downing were all rested but with them back in the squad today the manager has some big selection decisions to make.

“The boys who don’t play as often went out there and did very well,” he said. “Every game you go into gives you a selection problem but I suppose there is a wee bit more added to that after we got such a positive result at Stoke.

“It’s a nice position to be in. The more players we have to pick from then the better chance we have of being successful.”

Suarez’s brilliance helped ensure Liverpool made their dominance count at Stoke but once again a host of chances went begging.

Scoring goals has been a problem but Dalglish is confident the Reds’ finishing will improve.

He said: “I suppose everybody is a bit more conscious of it. It’s not just the one game against Norwich last weekend, we had it the game before against United too when we should have won the game and missed a couple of chances.

“The most important thing for us is to be creating chances. We try to cover every option that we can, but you cannot replicate what happens on the pitch. To be fair, the boys went out on Wednesday and created another six really good chances in the first half. We’ll continue to do our best to create chances and see where that takes us.”

Liverpool had won their 10 previous trips to The Hawthorns prior to the 2-1 defeat they suffered back in April. On that day they were dogged by the loss of defenders Johnson and Agger to injury early on and were beaten by two Chris Brunt penalties.

The 12th placed Baggies have enjoyed a mixed start to the season but have defeated rivals Wolves and Aston Villa in their last two games.

“We got beat there last year so we know what we are up against,” Dalglish said. “Roy will do the best for his team. They’ve picked up well after an unsteady start and are sitting there very comfortably

“We know it’s a difficult place to go and that the onus is on ourselves to put in a decent performance. We need to concentrate on what we do.”